by Jacob Saxton
Soakie is here with their debut self-titled EP and it is an unrelenting, powerful fist coming straight for your face. In true hardcore punk fashion, Soakie rips through seven songs in under fifteen minutes and never once gives you a second to catch your breath. This group, with members originally from New Zealand and the US, formed in Melbourne in 2018, and we should all be grateful that they managed to cross paths from such far stretched roots. Make sure your shoes are laced tight and brace yourself for one of the heaviest releases yet this year.
If you’re familiar with Soakie, you may notice a few repeat tracks from their 2018 Dangerous Doge Demo. Only this time, they somehow found a way to fit even more venom and broken glass in there. Tracks like “Or You Or You” and “Ditch the Rich” are perfect representations of how to describe this band to others. It’s snotty, it’s fast, it’s mean, and it’s telling you to get out of the way because Soakie is here to fuck shit up. For example, “Hey, hello, how are you, I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to talk to you, or you.” Piercingly strained screams on top of crazy fast drums, and ripping overdriven guitar make their message perfectly clear. Soakie has more on their mind than just telling you to get lost. “Boys on Stage” comes through as a hard-hitting anthem about the lack of diversity in the punk scene, and they don’t beat around the bush when trying to tell you that “there are too many fucking boys on stage.” Also among the tracks you may know from their 2018 demo is “Powertool,” it is a contagious and furious song, that puts you in a grimy basement rocking your head until your nose bleeds. The snare just never quits, and by the time the chorus comes around you are jumping up and down and trying to start a mosh pit wherever you are.
Then there are the new, previously unreleased tracks on this EP. The opening song “Nuke the Frats” is another one of those infectious tracks that takes total control of your body and sends you moving violently throughout your room. In Soakie’s signature style, it’s bouncing and dancey while simultaneously being fiercely cutthroat. “What’s Your Gender,” the second to last track starts with a distorted, high gain bass riff that quickly gets joined by fast drum hits before the rest of the band hops in. As you have come to expect from Soakie by now, it is another all killer, no filler song that will leave you weak in the knees. When it ends, you may want a second to gain your composure, but Soakie doesn’t care. The last track starts, amps are buzzing, the drum sticks count in and they are in your face again. “Don’t talk, don’t talk back!”. The EP ends just as it started. 1,000 miles per hour, angry, and completely unforgiving. “Don’t Talk Back” is the last song for a reason, they don’t want you to forget what you’ve just been through. One last breakdown, one last heart attack, and then you can sit down, wipe the sweat from your brow and start the whole thing from the top again.